A Data Historian (also known as a Process Historian or an Operational Historian) is a software program that allows us to pull data from multiple sources to a common platform for analysis. It also allows us to record and retrieve production and process data by time.

Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)

In-process quality control and final product quality assurance is handled by on-line analyzers where feasible and through laboratory analysis where it is not feasible to have online analyzers. The online analyzer systems and LIMS is a vital part of refinery in-process quality control and assurance. While the quality data from online analyzer systems are stored in the refinery data historian, the laboratory analysis data is handled in LIMS.

The LIMS system receives data from two sources

From laboratory instruments that are capable of interfacing with the LIMS system

Through manual entry for sample analysis data that cannot be automatically taken from lab instruments.

Following are the key features of this application

Sample Analysis and Reporting

Barcode Management

Lab Inventory Management

Instrument Calibration & Maintenance

Operator Logbook

Instrument Logbook

Sample Disposal

Integration with Lab Instruments

Custom Reporting

Lab KPI Management

Lab Cost Analysis

Interfacing with other MES Applications such as Data Historian, Yield Accounting etc.

The Oil Movement Management (OMM) application also known as Off-sites Area Management Applications, closes the loop between basic control systems in the offsite areas such as blending, Automatic Line, Movement Execution, Shipping & Loading and the Advanced Automation and IT systems that are related to offsite area such as Scheduling, Production Accounting, Operations Management, Billing, Invoicing and Sales. It provides Operations and off-site management with a one-stop overview and awareness of all important events, tasks, data, instructions and activities in the tank-farm area.

Oil Movement Management provides benefits to refinery off site operations staff in the following manner:

Provides visibility of all activities and data at the off sites area.

Improves the offsite area operational integrity through real time monitoring.

Improves efficiency of the shipping and marine operations.

Support disciplined off site operations through order management.

Stores history of all the data, instructions, actions and movements.

Automates data exchange with other systems such as production accounting, ERP, MBDR and others to improve data accuracy and reduce manual data entries.

Provides consistent and accurate data to improve planning and scheduling.

Provides alerts and escalation capability as needed.

Provides a hub for exchange of data with external parties as needed and allowed by company policy; this can automate exchange of data, reports, requests and acknowledgement.

The Production accounting application performs reconciliation of the measured raw data and provides accurate data for daily production accounting and performance reporting. It acts as a consolidated and single-source reporting of production statistics from a centrally located system, accessible to employees across the organization ranging from Top Management to Product traders to Retro-analysts. It will not only eliminate conflicting actual operating results but also support high level analysis and decision making.

Following are the key functionalities for Production accounting and data reconciliation:

To ensure agile communication and information transfer within the operations team, refineries require an operations management system that automates their instruction management as well as the operations logbook. The integrated system provides a comprehensive platform for managing operating targets and instructions from the scheduler level to operations, actions taken to meet the plan and tasks among plant operation teams, routine reporting and shift handover logs.

Following are the key functionalities of this application:

Logs events, comments and observations for use in daily and shift reports and exhaustive analysis

Interfaces with the operations support group such as Process Control to communicate on routine plant operations support

Provides ability to set and manage scheduled, economic and other operating targets; scheduler's instructions and to summarize shift handover information.

Allows monitoring of the refinery performance

Is equipped with the capability of storing the historical data pertaining to operating instructions, shift logs

Provides displays and reports that can be used for daily/weekly operations meetings.

Alerts other departments/units on events through active and passive reporting (i.e. shift reports on the archive)

Corporate dashboards serve the Top Management requirement of having an integrated view of static and dynamic data right from crude exploration/procurement all the way down to secondary distribution. Analytics are often used in this infrastructure to compare different metrics, analyze or foresee situations that might get alarming based on forecasted trends.

Key benefits of Corporate Dashboards:

Facilitate top management in visualizing the outcome of a strategic decision often backed up by good data historical

Static and Real-time data such as KPI’s (Key Performance Indices) and KOP’S (Key Operating Parameters) can be viewed readily in a-la-carte trends and interactive graphical charts for better analysis

Spares the valuable time of the working level engineer in digging relevant data and developing customized reports for Top Management

Single, integrated end-to-end real-time visibility of information across the business chain

Owing to the automated flow of data into the dashboards, the chances of source data getting manipulated are mitigated

Provides an opportunity to respond faster in the event of disruptions in the business chain

Delivery of standard or customized training on the basis of one-on-one staff mentoring for users, administrators and support personnel in your organization

Provide functional and cross-functional overview for better visibility of real time operations for Top Management to have the necessary Business Intelligence and make insightful decisions based on changes in business and markets

Align key business transaction systems such as MES, trading platform and ERP in one window and design viable and easily accessible solutions in-line with the industry wide best practices